June Webinar
Thursday, June 18, 2021, 7 PM - 8 PM CDT

DRESS, IDEOLOGY, AND FASHION CHANGE IN JOSEON-DYNASTY KOREA

The establishment of Neo-Confucianism as the official ideology of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) profoundly affected Korean costume. The Joseon court adopted new garment forms that held great symbolic significance in Neo-Confucian philosophy, and issued laws that listed the types of clothing deemed appropriate for the various social ranks. In Korea as elsewhere, however, socio-economic changes brought about transformations in fashion, many of which blurred social divisions and countered Neo-Confucian tenets of austerity and modesty. Although the ruling elite disparaged these fashions as scandalous, they were ultimately unsuccessful in stemming their popularity. This colorfully illustrated webinar will discuss the ideological underpinnings of Joseon dress, key fashion changes throughout the dynasty, and the ways that these developments remain manifest in modern-day hanbok.

Speaker: Lee Talbot, Curator at The George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum in Washington, D.C.
Moderator: Philip Hu, Curator of Asian Art at Saint Louis Art Museum

Lee Talbot is Curator at The George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., where he specializes in East Asian textile history. Before joining the museum staff, he spent two and a half years as curator at the Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. He currently is preparing the exhibition Korean Fashion: From Royal Court to Runway, on view at The Textile Museum from August - December, 2022.

Philip Hu is Curator of Asian Art at Saint Louis Art Museum. He joined the Museum in 2006 and initiated the Museum’s first gallery for Korean art. Philip received a BA in architecture from UC Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from UCLA. He subsequently received his MA in Chinese art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where he also completed all the coursework for the PhD program. He taught East Asian art history at New York University and at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.